A Sermon Delivered by ROBERT BARCLAY At A Mission Hall Service, 1869.
Sermons of Robert Barclay, Edited By His Widow, Sarah Matilda Fry Barclay. London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1878, pages 176-188.
This is The Quaker Homiletics Online Anthology, Part 3: The 19th Century.
This scene really took place upon "God's earth." No one has ever doubted that the scene
described in these verses really did take place. The greatest infidels, the most daring doubters, the
greatest enemies of' the religion of Jesus, have never denied that this was the greatest event that
ever happened in the world. That Jesus lived, that Jesus died, and that Jesus now has "a name
which is above every name," are facts. Ask what power for good the world's great soldiers, great
statesmen, or great philosophers, have left behind them, after eighteen hundred years; and whether
you are a Christian or not, the more~fully you know the more fully you will admit that their
power for good is as a shadow which passeth away, compared with the name and the power of
Jesus. Men may scoff at him and revile him, but his kingdom over the minds of men is becoming
greater and greater every day.
As Christians, we believe that "He must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet;" that "at
the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that lie is Lord," either now in
the day of His unutterable love and mercy, or in the day of His power hereafter. Our subject this
evening is Christ's death. Be very sure that nothing I can say will make it more of a living reality
to us than it was to those who saw it--more solemnly, more awfully true, than it is to you and to
me, poor sinful men. There were many who went out of the gates of the city of Jerusalem to see
that crucifixion. They were men of like passions with us. What, for instance, was that sight to the
cold, hard-hearted, scoffing Jew, careless about all religion? the man whose only thoughts were
about the things of' this life, "What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be
clothed?" As there are people now who think this is the only thing that concerns them, so there
were then. But such persons generally agree that a man must besides all this have some
amusement. This was why this Jew (whom I shall take as a representative of many) listened to
Jesus. There were many such as the one I shall describe; Jews who were Jews outwardly, but who
were not inwardly and really the people of God. I can more easily describe to you the life of Jesus,
and the feelings of multitudes, and what they saw and heard, if I select one out of the multitude.
We think of this man, then, as one who had seen much of Jesus during the last three years of His
life. Jesus had given him something which broke the dull, careworn, wretched round of that sinful
and weary life which finds its all in eating, drinking, clothing, and amusing itself, without a
thought of preparing for a never-ending eternity.
Thousands had pressed around to hear Jesus speak, and this Jew had gone with the crowd, for he
loved the excitement of the hour. Whenever and wherever the people were, Jesus found them.
Was it in the morning or in the evening, he was among them; was it a Passover, was it a feast-day,
he was there. He lost no opportunity "of doing good, and healing all who were oppressed of the
devil." Try to picture the various scenes where Jesus preached--on the hill-side, by the. road-side,
in the streets and open places of the city. When this short sentence, among others, for weary souls
was uttered, "Come unto me all ye that labour and heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" and
again when the words, "Behold a sower went forth to sow," sounded in accents soft and clear
over the heads of the multitude, this Jew heard them. Then he missed sense part of the discourse,
and again the words broke sharply on his ear, "Some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls
came and devoured them up." On another occasion he hears Christ saying, "Take heed to
yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and
cares of this life." You may be sure he thought, "Surely Jesus has sees how I spent last night, in
drunkenness and unhallowed pleasure." He was right. Jesus Christ was perfect God and perfect
man. He had seen it all, and tie sees all which a single night casts its veil over, in yonder great city.
One day this Jew heard the words clearly,--too clearly for his peace of mind,--" These shall go
away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." This man knew he was not
righteous, Jesus looked on him as He said pleadingly, "It is better for thee to enter into lite with
one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire, where their worm dieth not, and where the
fire is not quenched." It was spoken as a man might plead with a sleeper to arise and escape for
his life. It told him the plain and awful truth that he had a soul created for an eternity of joy, and
that he must give up all his dearest vices, or lose his soul.
The people who had a short time before received this Jesus as a king and welcomed Him to
Jerusalem with Hosannas--who had cried, "Blessed is He that cometh in tile name of the
Lord"--who had cut down branches from the palm trees, and spread them and their garments in
tile way--were now stirred up by the chief priests. They seized him after Judas had betrayed him,
and they led him away to Pilate the Roman governor, and begged him to put Jesus to death, on
the false charge that he was encouraging people to resist the payment of tribute or taxes to the
Romans, and that He claimed to be a acting in opposition to the Roman Emperor. Pilate, having
heard that Jesus was a Galilean, sent Him to Herod the king of Galilee. Herod sent Jesus back
again, and to show that he thought the charge only fit to be ridiculed, he sent Him back again,
arrayed in mockery with a splendid kingly purple robe. At last the question is to be decided: Pilate
takes his place at the judgment seat; the crowd again rush together; Jesus comes forth wearing the
purple robe and crowned with a crown of thorns; Pilate cries, "Behold the man! I find no fault in
Him. Behold your King! I will therefore release Him and let Him go." Listen to the shout of the
crowd: "Away with Him! crucify Him! not this man, but Barabbas." "Now Barabbas was a
robber." Did the Jew, of whom we have spoken, want the meek and gentle Jesus to be his king?
No: he and his countrymen wanted the promised Messiah to come as a worldly king, who would
have delivered Israel from the power of Rome. But Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world."
Otherwise they would willingly have made Him their king. Pilate again pleaded, "Shall I crucify
your King?" The crowd is angry--" We have no king but Caesar. If thou let this man go, thou art
not Caesar's friend. He that maketh himself a king speaketh against Caeser."
Ah! there is always one point where the thoroughgoing man of the world fails. Pilate well knew
that his deeds would not bear inspection at the court of Caesar, the Emperor of Rome. His weak
point was there. You, who sin secretly, who sin prudently, you who sin a little, and think you wilt
escape the consequences of that sin, remember Pilate. He would have acted rightly. God
strengthened his disposition to do so. He appealed to him by his conscience. He caused Pilate's
wife to dream a fearful dream, and to beg him, "Have thou nothing to do with that Just Man." He
made Pilate tremble before the words of Him who was the Truth itself. And when his Prisoner
told him, "Thou couldst have no power at all against me, unless it were given thee from above,"
he not only sought, but earnestly sought, to release Him. But here was the point: "If thou let this
man go, thou art not Caesar's friend." Pilate knew well of what they could justly accuse him. Here
is the power--the awful power--of a sinful life: it makes a man a coward, afraid to do right. We
cannot help believing, as we read, that had Pilate then acted rightly, God's grace might have saved
even him. He refused it: he sinned against conviction, and delivered up that Just One to be
crucified. It was then of no use to try to appease a guilty conscience, and wash his hands before
the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of tho blood of this Just Person." This is exactly what a
certain class of hardened sinners always say, to whitewash their consciences, when they have led
astray, by their example, some poor young man, some poor young woman. Beware, my dear
friends, if you value your souls, of flattering yourselves that up to a certain point you had good
intentions. You will not he .judged at the last day according to your good intentions, but
according to your works.
But, hark! what are the crowd saying ? They sway to and fro, they cry out with the voice of one
man, "Away with Him! Cruelty, Him! His blood be upon us and on our children." A fearful
prayer! God sometimes answers such prayers, and fearfully this was answered by judgments on
the Jewish nation. Have you never felt yourself carried away by the excitement of the crowd? So
also was this Jew. He had heard in time past the words of teaching, of encouragement, of
sympathy, of gentle and awful warning, which fell from the lips of our adorable Lord; but having
resisted God's grace which hath appeared unto men, he had not the love of God in his heart: the
words came to his lips as he joined in the chorus of the crowd, "Away with Him, crucify Him!"
My friends, are we sure we should not have joined in that cry? Are there none here who have a
conscience, like the ear which has become dull; which no longer thrills to the music of the voice of
God and of His truth? whose conscience pleaded long, but pleads no longer? Do you know what
it is to have had a godly father, a praying mother? Do you condemn the Jew? Do you know what
it is to have had a kind and gentle teacher, who set before you faithfully all that this Jew heard,
and a great deal more (for there was perhaps not a Jew in Jerusalem who had heard as much of
the words of Jesus as you have heard), words full of love and full of warning, dropping gently into
your ear Sunday after Sunday? Have you never heard the Gospel preached when the Spirit of God
smote your heart as with the hammer of His truth?--when Christ, "the Light of tile World," has
shown you in one broad glance that you are a sinner, that the world and its glories and delights
are all passing away from you, and that you must make your choice between being ruled by the
world or being ruled by Christ--that you must; choose once for all between Christ and Barabbas,
between heaven and hell, cost what it may? When he has knocked at the door of your heart, have
you let Him in? Do you know the joy of the past being forgiven and having Jesus for your guest?
If it is not so with you, if on the contrary you scorn religion, if you despise the followers of Jesus
who have the image of their Master, you, like the soldiers, have twisted some portion of His
crown of thorns in the loud unfeeling laugh, in the sneer at religious people. Have you not, if you
have persecuted Christ's followers, "mocked Him," "spit upon Him?" If you have not done this,
have you not torn His loving heart when he offered to you a full, free, and eternal salvation, by
coldly saying, "Go thy way at this time; when I have a more convenient season I will call for
thee?" Or have you, like Judas, been once a follower of Christ, and betrayed your Lord? However
great your sin, come, fellow sinner, with me, and see Him who had the hosts of heaven at His
beck and call, sink under the weight of that cross they made Him hear.
"And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and
the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left." They have nailed to the cross
those hands which fed the multitude, which opened the blind eye, which unstopped the deaf ears,
those life-giving hands one touch of which raised the widow's dead, those feet under whose tread
the strong waves grew calm. They have crucified Him at whose word the grave gave up its dead,
who yet wept at the grave of Lazarus, who could share both the sorrow and joy of the lowly
cottager at Bethany. But what are those words? Jesus speaks: surely he is pronouncing the
well-earned doom of a world's basest ingratitude. No; the curse richly merited did not come from
those pale and agonized lips: they were words of blessing :-"Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do." Gaze at thy loving Saviour: if so be the eye of faith and the light of His Holy
Spirit may show thee Jesus Christ and Him crucified as thy Lord and thy God. This is He "who his
own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness." "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord hath laid on Him file iniquity of us all." "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away
the sin of the world." Remember, O guiltiest of sinners, remember, O my soul, that Jesus Christ
died for thee. He who knew no sin was made a sin-offering for thee. Thou who thinkest a little sin
may be indulged in, ask thyself, not what thy estimate of sin is, but what is God's estimate of it.
His well-beloved Son left the heights of heaven to suffer all this, and to die for thee, and for me,
poor guilty sinners. "Herein is love," unfathomable love, "not that we loved God, but that He
loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." That Jesus whom thou now seest
on the cross crucified for thee is "God manifest in the flesh." If thou art willing to accept him, this
is the only condition. He is thy Saviour. Repent, and believe the Gospel. Repent, and all thy past
sins shall be blotted out from the book of God's remembrance, and the times of refreshing shall
come from the presence of the Lord. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
And there they crucified Him, and the two thieves on either side one. The time is far spent, and
they are dying; and swiftly time is passing, sinner, to thee; gay and thoughtless as thou art, the
inevitable hour must come. God has given thee life for a great and glorious purpose, to glorify
him and to prepare thee for heaven. Thou canst not refuse the choice which is placed before thee;
thou canst not even rid thyself of life, for after death is the judgment. There are three dying before
thee, Christ and the two thieves. The impenitent thief feels that his hour is come; he snatches like
a drowning man at a straw, and even in his railing he longs to be saved, but it is the salvation of
the body he seeks. "If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. Let Christ the King of Israel descend
from the cross and save us." Is there any one here who fondly hopes that he will find some way of
escape which is not Christ's way? Will you defer the hour of repentance, and believe that when, to
the last hour of your life, you have trampled under foot the Son of God, and put Him to an open
shame, that you can then command the grace of a penitent heart? A death-bed repentance is not at
our command. When ungodly men are dying, I fear Satan very often bars the door against
Christian men who can speak of the Saviour's love. Godless relations do not like the thought of
religion at such a time--how often the doctor tells them, and very rightly, to keep him perfectly
quiet! and very quiet he is kept, and this ungodly man slips away from the world often without
knowing his danger, and without one short hour to prepare to meet his God. And then his friends
comfort themselves by the thought how gently and quietly he passed away; and to what?--from a
life of sin to an awful eternity, having rejected in life and health a loving Saviour.
Let us look at the other picture of the penitent thief, and learn that if to this very hour thou hast
no hope, and art without God in the world, however near thou art to that eternity to which we are
all hastening, Jesus can save thee to the very uttermost. The penitent thief shewed godly sorrow
and deep repentance. "We suffer justly, we have received the reward of our evil deeds; Lord,
remember me when thou comest into Thy kingdom." Here we have living faith in Jesus as the Son
of God. "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." Tho penitent thief
was in that moment justified and sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our
God; and not only so, we have the proof that the work was a real work in his heart, by his
pleading with his fellow-sinner. There is not one word here to make us believe that this thief had
put off the hour of repentance, or that he had ever been a Christian, but rather that his day of
grace was at the eleventh hour.
What words of joy to the dying man! "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." What a change
from agony to bliss! The penitent thief did not pass quietly away, surrounded with every comfort,
but he died by the rough blow of the soldier, and in fearful agony.
Oh, my dear friends, may you and may I die, as our perfect pattern our blessed Lord and Saviour
died, and through Him may we be able to triumph over all death's terrors. May we know both
now and in that hour, that all our past sins are pardoned, and feel that all our lives long he has
been preparing us, by his Holy Spirit, to meet that hour; and with hearts at one with God, full of
blessed peace, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, may we be able to say with perfect
confidence, "Father, into Thine hands I commit my spirit--Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God
of Truth."
"Saviour, perfect my trust,
Strengthen the might of my faith;
Let me feel as I would when I stand
On the brink of the shore of death;
Feel as I would when my feet
Are slipping over the brink.
For it; may be I am nearer home,
Nearer now than I think."
My friends, the message of tho Gospel is very simple and very plain: "Repentance toward God,
and faith "--loving trust and confidence--" toward our Lord Jesus Christ." He is our Saviour; he
died for me. If your heart is willing to accept Him as your Saviour and your King, delay not a
moment, come to Jesus for pardon now. He offers to you eternal salvation now. The Scripture
says, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation." Tomorrow may
never come. The day of God's grace may never come again. Let me beg of you not to leave this
place to-night without casting yourself before Him in prayer. If you have never prayed before,
pray to-night. "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things?" If you ask bread of your reconciled Father, will He give
you a stone? Do you fear he will leave you? Did not our blessed Lord say, "I will not leave you
comfortless (orphans); I will come to you?" He will send to you the Comforter, even His Holy
Spirit. If you seek him day by day in prayer, you shall know that there is "now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." You will have
the witness of the Spirit in your heart, that he is your reconciled Father, and that you are the child
of God; and "perfect love" will "cast out fear." Just as an earthly father lifts his tender, loving,
trusting, little child over the briars and thorns, pushing them aside, and treading them down, and
making a way where there is not way, so will your Heavenly Father care for you! He will lift you
over the thorns and briars that beset the narrow way in this wilderness world. Let us trust in
Jesus, and the grave will be to us only the dark gateway which leads to that Paradise where we
shall meet the holy and the blessed, and where we shall meet the loved ones who have gone
before, and where we shall see that Savior who has died for us. Then shall we perfectly love him,
and fully know the power of the Cross of Christ.